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Juan-Pablo Velez
Chicago, IL
Bright green, social liberal, cinephile
Recent Activity
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |Also, if you're going to reply, please engage the arguments being made rather than repeating "fair is fair." I don't expect I'll change your mind, but nobody will get anything out of this other than cheap self-satisfaction if we don't deliberate with an open mind.
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |
It's not that simple. 20% of a poor person's income means a dramatic reduction in their welfare. 20% of a wealthy person's income does not. Hence the case for the progressive tax. A flat tax is fair only the abstract, not in the way it actually affects people's welfare.
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |If government "help programs" and rising taxes are your definition of leftist, then let me tell you the entire developed world is leftist, and more so than the U.S. is. Same goes for safety laws. And last time I checked, the developed world's economies - including social democratic (but still quite capitalistic) Europe - did nothing but grow and raise living standards during the 20th century. (Until the Great Recession that is. And until American wages started to stagnate three decades ago.) As for the freedom bit, see above.
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |
We are defining "free" differently. To me, and I suspect others on this thread, freedom doesn't simply equal less government intrusion, physical security, freedom of speech, assembly, the ability to do whatever you please so long as it does not prevent others from doing so, etc. (negative freedoms)
These things are crucially necessary, but woefully insufficient. True human freedom requires other ingredients - nutrition, education, health, employment, some degree of economic security, the ability to form meaningful connections with other people, etc. (positive freedoms)
Not only do these things affect a person's life chances before they're even born (along with plenty of other, non-political factors, of course.)
Someone who is poor, which often means uneducated, unhealthy, trapped in deprivation and insecurity, unable to have full freedom of agency over their situation, is not in any meaningful sense "free."
At their best, which is to say when they're funding high-quality public services, taxes are a means to advance this kind of human freedom for everyone. (Clearly this isn't always and everywhere the case, especially in the U.S. Also, this doesn't necessarily mean the government should provide every service directly)
You seem to see taxes only as a lack, as a profound kind of unfreedom (at least that's what I get from your "slave" and "theft" talk.)
Yes, higher taxes means a person has less control over her income. But this money doesn't go into a black hole - it lays the groundwork that makes the economy work in the first place, and it goes to provide for life's necessities and to hedge against life's risks. For everyone. (and this is important, because too many working people in this country have a hard time making that happen. and inequality is astronomical, meaning a stupendous share of the wealth generated by this economy ends up at the top, though this is not natural, inevitable, or moral.)
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |Actually, foreign aid is a tiny part of the federal budget. The three largest expenditures are social security, medicare, and defense.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/foreign-aid-spending-is-crippling-our.html
Our borrowing from the Chinese (among many others) is to fund a debt on a deficit based on the Bush tax cuts, two wars, and fiscal stimulus to fight the recession (most of which will be paid back when the economy start to grow again). And the deficit and the debt are set to explode because of social security and medicare as the baby boomers retire and start needing pensions and health care.
Also, foreign aid is an essential part of mitigating and adapting to climate change. Practically speaking, developing countries simply won't be able to low-carbon development paths without it, or be able to adapt to the disproportionate share of climate impacts that will roil their much more vulnerable societies. (They can barely pay for basic public services as it is.) Nor should they have to, since this is also a moral issue. The developed world used up the vast majority of the atmosphere, so it should pay the comparatively small price so that the majority of humanity can also be lifted out of poverty.
On the accord issue, so long as Congress approves of the President's budget, the US can start acting voluntarily on some of the things that would be in an eventual treaty, such as climate funding. Every President sends his spending priorities to Congress, including on programs that are involved in foreign affairs. That's just governing.
Just like passing a climate bill is not in any way dependent on ratifying a climate treaty. Treaties just make a set of policies legally binding.
All the Obama's administration is doing here is saying "we won't voluntarily and unilaterally give you climate aid as we said we would in our political agreement, unless you also endorse said agreement."
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |Hey Marah,
Great post. A few questions about next steps:
Assuming we work out the methodology for estimating the virtual water footprints of different product classes, how do we 1. apply this to all products, 2. present this information simply and effectively, and 3. and make it accessible at the point of purchase? Is it enough to make a really good smart phone application that only greens will use? What's a feasible strategy to get retailers large and small to adopt these footprints?
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |I was referring to the manufacturing of energy technology - wind turbines, solar panels, etc. - not to China's (admittedly dirty) manufacturing in general.
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Juan-Pablo commented on the article |Worldchanging has a lengthy takedown of this totally misleading and uninformed video. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010840.html
Progressives need to grasp the broad stokes of climate policy and environmental economics if we are to build up the unified support we need for climate action. Alarmist associations of "Wall Street" and "bubbles" with cap-and-trade are incorrect, unhelpful, and come from people who don't understand how market-based environmental policies work. Not saying that cap-and-trade perfect, or that there aren't other alternatives, but on the merits its a good idea that has been absurdly misrepresented by both the right and (parts of) the left.
Mike: cap and trade does interfere with unfettered capitalism - it corrects the externalities of one market (the carbon pollution emitted during electricity generation) by creating another, regulated market (of pollution permits).
